A Placer County judge on Friday sentenced a man who was found guilty of murdering his father to 26 years to life in prison.
James Shade, 32, of Paradise was convicted in May of fatally stabbing his 62-year-old father, Larry Shade, two years ago at his Roseville home. The sentencing decision by Judge Jeffrey Penney followed a three-week trial in which Shade “showed no signs of remorse,” said Placer County Deputy District Attorney Anna Duffy.
“The defendant’s lack of remorse has been particularly disturbing,” Duffy said in a statement. “His anger toward his father did not in any way justify his decision to brutally end another human’s life.”
On March 14, 2021, Roseville police officers and a SWAT team responded to the father’s home on Hanisch Drive. A call was made to 911 about a victim who was dead from an apparent stabbing.
Shortly before officers arrived, Larry Shade walked to a neighbor’s house and cried for help. He died on the neighbor’s front porch, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Documents found inside the father’s house and surveillance footage from the scene led detectives to identify his son, James Shade, as the primary suspect. Roseville Police later arrested him at his home in Paradise.
During the trial, witnesses said that James Shade made threats against his father in the years and weeks before the murder, and at times, was violent with him, according to a release from the District Attorney’s Office.
James Shade was living on his father’s property in Paradise while his father lived in Roseville. Conflict between the father and son allegedly escalated in the weeks leading up to the murder, because Larry Shade told his son that he was preparing to move back to the Paradise property.
James Shade testified at trial that he drove from Paradise to his father’s house in Roseville to serve him a restraining order. He said he was armed with a knife and acted in self-defense when he stabbed his father, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Larry Shade had more than 20 stab wounds, according to the District Attorney, and the knife used to kill him was one that he gave his son just weeks before he died.